The Question in the Answer
by LaFemmeQuiRit
Summary: For a long time now, it's been Booth and Bones. I have to figure out how to be just Booth again."
1. Life Goes On

Disclaimer: Bones does not belong to me.

Author's Note Spoilers for The Parts in the Sum of the Whole.

Chapter One

The first time FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth heard that Senior Agent in Charge Scott Thomas from the Philadelphia office was considering retiring, he mentally gave the old friend a pat on the back for his service and sent him an e-mail to let him know Thomas' dedication and guidance would be missed. It was the least he could do for an old friend who had become more of an acquaintance after ten years.

The second time Booth heard the news that the SAC position in Philadelphia was going to be open, it was from Thomas himself, who called to say that he had been asked to recommend a replacement and the receipt of the e-mail had been a reminder of what a solid agent and stand-up guy Booth was. Thomas asked him if he'd be interested in a recommendation for the job, to which Booth had laughed good-naturedly and assured Thomas that he was quite happy in Washington, DC.

The third time Booth heard the position was open, Booth's response was not immediately negative nor was it filled with laughter. Deputy Director Cullen called him into his office and asked him to shut the door. Cullen wasn't the same man he was three years before, when his daughter was alive. He had barely returned to work, and even now his face was haunted. But Cullen recognized that same look in Booth's face now. It had been there for three months now, since a night that had changed his life and in a lot of ways, stolen the hope Booth felt for the future.

Seeley Booth's heart had been pulled out and stomped on, run over by Godzilla at a monster truck rally and stuffed back into his chest in a scene reminiscent of Indiana Jones. Every time he even looked in Bones' direction, that terrible pain blossomed again and spread out through his chest like a creeping vine, tendrils sinking into every muscle and bone. Even after three months. He didn't blame her. How could he be angry with her for telling him the truth, for not promising what she could not deliver? He couldn't hate her for the very thing he loved about her – her honesty. He turned the position down anyway – for Parker, for Bones, for himself.

He told himself that a man who really loved her would stick it out, would find the good in the situation and keep the friendship. There was so much good there. He couldn't be another in a long line of people who left. But the pain was worse than anything he had ever felt, worse than any torture he had experienced, than any emotional torment that followed taking a human life – it was a living creature gnawing at his insides like a carnivorous animal. When Booth looked in the mirror every morning, after three months of pretending and trying and pushing to move on like the man he wanted to be, he realized he didn't recognize the man he had become.

The fourth and final time he heard that the position was open, Booth accepted it.

He had enough leave saved that he could make arrangements to pick up Parker for a long weekend once a month, a plan he vowed he would stick to with regularity. Rebecca hadn't seemed surprised at his announcement when he came over late on a Monday night. Parker was already asleep, although she was gracious enough when he asked to look in on him and ended up spending ten minutes standing at the door watching his son sleep. Her lips had rubbed together as if she was contemplating saying something, but she didn't and for that he was grateful. When her hand rested on his shoulder in a comforting gesture, he felt the shudder of what might have been tears pas through him before he stood up and quietly walked out.

Through the entire three week period when he tried to get his career and personal life with his son in order, the pain didn't abate. He kept waiting for the moment when he would look at her and feel a quiet regret but happiness with his life, and it never happened. She didn't comment on the smiles that were more a grimace, or the end of their late night dinners and conversations at either apartment. He knew she understood what he meant when he said he had to move on.

Surprising even himself, he told Sweets first. The honorary and most recent addition to the "squints" had become his friend. But more than that, he was a confidant and the most likely of them to not breathe a word of the situation to Brennan until Booth could figure out what he was going to say – until Booth could puzzle out the words that would convince her he wasn't abandoning her, just moving on to a new part of his life. That's what people did, they moved on with their lives. He would never let someone else tell her – he owed her that much.

"Are you absolutely sure that this is what you want to do?" The young psychiatrist's expression wasn't clinical at all, but instead the mixture of curious and sympathetic Booth had expected.

"I have to do something." He looked at the calloused and aging hands that hung between his knees and tried to explain in words what his brain and his heart could not decipher. "I have to figure out how to be me again, without her."

"I feel like this is my fault."

"No." Booth sighed. "You pushed me to address what we had both been hiding from. I'm glad that it's out in the open now. We were just….we were in a holding pattern. That's no way to live."

Sweets eyed him with sadness. "Please stay in touch. I've really loved working with you."

One month before he was supposed to move to Philadelphia, Booth signed the paperwork giving up his apartment and arranged for the movers to pack everything. He realized the couldn't put it off any longer, and the right words were never going to just materialize on his tongue. He would have to use the wrong words and hope they sufficed.

When he arrived at the Jeffersonian that day, he wondered if they noticed the slow and heavy tread of his feet, as if he were walking through mud. Angela smiled and waved absently from the side of the room as she walked toward her office. He was glad Brennan had a friend like her.

The platform was occupied, but not by Bones or her regular band of merry men, so he bypassed it completely and headed to Cam's office. He needed to talk to a friend before he tackled the subject he came for. And, if he were being honest with himself, it gave him the opportunity to stall for a moment longer.

When he walked in the door, she looked up from her desk with a smile that faded almost immediately. He shut the door behind him and sat heavily in the chair in front of her, his body feeling as if it would collapse under the strain of everything he had been carrying the last four months. Her arms crossed into a defensive position before she sighed and stood up to sit in the chair across from him.

"I'm leaving D.C." He blurted it out and was shocked at the words and the expression on her face, his mind frozen at the horrible idea of saying it like that to the woman he loved. He was thankful he'd grasped the idea of doing a test run on Camille first.

She leaned back slightly, as if the force of his words had physically slammed into her. Brown eyes widened momentarily and eyebrows lifted, but she sighed and her face took on that sympathetic cast he had begun to look forward to no longer seeing on the faces that looked at him. It was like they all knew – he figured they probably did. It wasn't like it hadn't been brutally obvious that the interaction between he and Bones for the last few months had been strained to the breaking point.

"I'll miss you, Seeley. More than you know." The sympathy was gone and she smiled at him, widely. Camille Saroyan was nothing if she was not a good friend. He made another promise to not lose touch with her, even though deep down he knew it wouldn't last. That's what happened when people moved away. He had lost touch eventually when she moved to New York, and he would lose touch eventually when he moved to Philadelphia. It was the way of things.

"I've really enjoyed working with you again, Cam." He smiled a true smile then, one of the few he had in longer than he could remember. "We had some really good times."

"Yeah, we did." She cleared her throat. "So, when do you go? Where? Give me the details." The excitement he should have been feeling at such a positive career move seeped out of her and into him, relieving some of the god-awful tension he'd been carrying for three weeks as he tried to figure out what to do with his life.

"I'm taking over the Special agent in Charge position in Philadelphia in two weeks." Another smile and the frost around his heart thawed a little. "It's a huge promotion for me."

"Damn right it is. I'm glad the Feds finally realized how talented you were and are doing something about it." She punched him in the arm playfully. "No way you're as successful there as you are here with us, though."

"True. I'll actually have to start doing real police work again and relying on the FBI crime scene people. Maybe I can teach them a thing or two I learned here."

Her laugh was genuine. "Good luck with that. I'm going to be interested to see how the next FBI agent they ask us to work with handles the personalities in this building." At the reminder that the others who had tried to replace him had not really worked out, he sobered up a bit and looked down. His hands had become so interesting in the last few weeks.

Her voice was a whisper when she breathed again. "Have you told her yet?"

"No." The breath he was holding whooshed out of him at the release of the word. "No, that's what I'm here for today – to take her to lunch."

He heard her sigh next to him, and when she spoke her voice was soft but firm. "Listen to me, Seeley. You love her and you told her and you've done everything you can. You were willing to put yourself out there and be there for her, and she couldn't do it for you. You deserve to find someone that loves you back just that much, Seeley, the way you deserve to be loved. Nobody deserves that more than you."

When he looked up at her finally, her gaze was firm and all traces of sadness were gone. "She's a grown woman, and yes, she will have a hard time when she realizes her friend is moving away. But she's got Hodgins and Angela and even me. She made her choice and now you've got an amazing opportunity – the two shouldn't be related. If you turn it down, I'd smack you."

Involuntarily, he laughed and stood up to hug her. Her arms curled around him firmly, her hands planted on his shoulder blades. "Thank you, Cam."

"Don't be a stranger, Seeley." Her grip grew firmer, as if to emphasize her point. "I don't want to lose contact like we did before."

"We won't." He meant it. She let go and stepped back to her desk to resume work and he stepped out of the office, pausing at the door. "I'll be back before I leave."

"You owe me a beer from the last case, anyway." Her eyes were on the computer but her mouth was turned up in a half-smile.

"You got it." Booth turned away from her office and forced himself toward Bones' shiny glass walls. Her brown hair was tipped over the paperwork in front of her and he couldn't help but admire her one last time. He would always admire her. The shine of her hair and the delicate bones of her neck and hands were beautiful to him. He knocked. Her eyes and the smile on her face when she saw him was even more beautiful.

"Hey, Bones." He cleared his throat and tried again. "You interested in lunch?"

Her lips stretched widely and he knew it was because they hadn't eaten together in quite some time. She had been giving him space but clearly missed their previously close relationship. "The diner?"

"Pie sounds good to me."

The seats at their usual table felt smaller somehow, and the lights were too bright. He tried to focus on her face as she spoke excitedly about the recent skeleton she had been examining from a cave in Africa. He wondered if the strange sense of detachment he felt was present on his face and realized it must have been when she stopped speaking and looked at him oddly.

"Are you feeling alright? You've barely eaten anything."

It came rushing out of him in an expelled breath, the same as it had with Cam. The urge to speak but the fear and tightness in his throat thrust out the words with force and pain. "I'm transferring to Philadelphia."

Unlike Cam's moment of shock that was quickly over, Bones' entire body shook for a moment as if the words were passing right through her. The delicate pale skin of her face grew suddenly even more translucent and he sucked in a deep breath to keep going, to try and end it as quickly as possible. To tell her why he was leaving, to reassure her that it didn't mean he wouldn't be there for her whenever she would need him.

"The Special Agent in Charge position has opened up and I accepted it. It's a huge career move for me and I couldn't turn it down."

Her throat worked, but no sounds came out and she set her spoon down carefully. He could almost see the wheels in her mind turning as she tried to decide what to say next.

"What about Parker? I thought you said staying in Washington for him was more important than your career." She wasn't looking at him and he prayed to God that he said the right things, that he didn't hurt her.

"I'll get him for one long weekend a month. I have enough leave saved up that I can travel to pick him up on Friday afternoons and come back on Sundays. The train is fast and cheap. He and I have talked about it and he's pretty excited." He tried for a humorous smile, but it felt awkward and wrong on his face so he stopped. "He wants to see the Liberty Bell."

She wouldn't meet his eyes, so he set his hand on hers on the table, trying to memorize the feel of the delicate bones, the cool skin, the long fingers. Her eyes shifted to settle on his hand. "When?"

"Two weeks."

Her eyes flew up to his, for the first time with anger. "Two weeks? You waited this long to tell me?"

"I'm sorry, Bones. I just accepted the position a few weeks ago and I had to get my personal life in order before I could share it with other people." He pulled his hand back and frowned when he felt his own anger rising at her outburst. "I have asked Deputy Director Cullen to sensitize anyone that they assign to work with you to respect the Jeffersonian and everyone who works there, especially you. I don't want anyone else making the mistakes I did and assuming you aren't a genius."

Sadness and anger and confusion were warring on her face and she had begun to shred a napkin into thin strips with trembling fingers. "Is this because of what happened?"

He winced and closed his eyes for a moment, willing his face to be calm and his voice to be even. Guilt wasn't what he was looking for. "Bones, I—"

"I'm sorry that I couldn't tell you what you wanted to hear, Booth." Her voice was agitated now but dropping in volume as the impending loss registered and the feeling of rejection that he knew she would associate with his departure began to manifest. "But please don't leave because of that. You said we could work together. You said we could be friends."

"We will be friends." He took her hand again and tilted her chin up with his other finger to meet his eyes, the sadness and hurt in her eyes a physical blow. "We ARE friends. I will ALWAYS be your friend - don't ever forget that and don't ever think it isn't the truth."

"Then why are you leaving? We're partners."

"I have to learn how to be me without you around, Bones. I have to figure out who I am again. For a long time now it's been Booth and Bones. I have to learn how to be just Booth. This job is a good way for me to do it." He smiled at her, this time forcing himself to project a positive outlook. "Besides, you will catch criminals with another partner just as well as me. You're the genius here."

She didn't reply and he looked down at the new decimated napkin that lay on top of her salad.

"Bones, this isn't about me leaving you. I'm not leaving you. You are important to me and I will _never_ leave you. But life goes on and people move, jobs changes. This is a great opportunity for me." He took a deep breath. "I hope you'll be happy for me."

"Nobody deserves a promotion more than you, Booth." She reached into the purse on the seat next to her and pulled out a twenty, lying it on the table. "I should be getting back to work."

His heart seized as he realized she was shutting down again, shutting him out, taking this exactly the wrong way. "Bones, no. Please stay here and talk to me about this." He looked around him as if to find something with which to physically restrain her in the diner. "We haven't even had pie yet."

"Thank you for telling me in person. Please tell Cullen to contact Cam when they have identified a replacement for you." Her face was shuttered and her eyes would not meet his. He reached out his hand to touch her arm, to stop her from leaving, and she flinched. It burned and his eyes pricked with tears. Never in the five years they had worked together had she ever shied from his touch. "Please don't."

He swallowed down his frustration and regret. This was the very scene he had anticipated and yet hoped would not happen. "Bones, I'd like to see you again before I leave."

"Life goes on, Booth." When she looked at him, her eyes were dead. "Good luck in Philadelphia."

The door was swinging shut behind her before he could recover. His eyes closed in pain and his adam's apple moved up and down as he swallowed everything and packed it into a tight box inside where all his other painful feelings were stored. Saying goodbye to her and moving to Philadelphia was supposed to be hard, but afterward he was supposed to feel refreshed, reborn – ready to begin again. Why did he feel as if he was leaving a part of himself behind?


	2. Counting

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

**Author's Note:** Many, many thanks to all those who took the time to review the last chapter. I hope that you continue to enjoy this one and those to come.

**Author's Playlist:** I have found some amazing music from other author's playlists and they truly do influence your writing. During this chapter I found myself repeatedly listening to _Beggar's Prayer_, by Emiliani Torrini. I also recommend her song _Me and Armini_.

CHAPTER TWO: Counting

_"Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death."_ – James F. Bymes

In the last sixty days, Dr. Temperance Brennan had positively identified 14 sets of remains ranging in age from 300 to 2,000 years old. It was a personal best for her. She had spent 16 separate nights in the lab, unwilling to go home because her work had taken over her mind and before she knew it, it was 3 AM and the only light in the building was in her office. There were 12 invitations from Cam to go to lunch, and 32 invitations from Angela for lunch, dinner, dancing, shoe shopping, and Sunday brunches. Hodgins had asked her exactly 2 times if she needed anything from him. Sweets had offered one time only to speak with her if she needed to. Her editor had called her 43 times to ask how the new book was going because she had missed the ever extending deadline for her newest rough draft 3 times. She had written the first chapter of her new book exactly 9 times and deleted it every single time.

She had participated in exactly 2 investigations with the FBI during that same time period. Special Agent Andrew Turner was 45 years old, happily married with three children, respectful of the lab and the scientific minds within it, and very good at his job in what she privately thought of as a pedantic way. Nothing he did had the flair of her last partner. No one else commented on the strangely odd tilt in his walk from a football injury in college, and she wondered if she was the only one who noticed. He called her only when it was case-related and deferred to her when she did or did not want to attend during the questioning of a family member or a suspect. In the 45 days they had been acquainted, he had spoken her former partner's name zero times.

The counting helped her. Creatures everywhere were going through life marking their existence by the tedious numbers of events and accomplishments. Why should she be any different? The counting reminded her that life was supposed to be logical, orderly, and controlled. When it was not orderly and controlled, bad things happened and the things associated with your stable life changed. _Life goes on, Bones._

In the odd moments that the counting stopped while she was at the office, and her brain began to move in directions other than those of scientific inquiry, the odd feeling in her chest began again. The flush of anger moved through her nervous system, her hands clenching involuntarily in reaction and the skin on her face flushing as the blood pooled under the dermis. Her brain registered the dump of oxytocin and vasopressin from the hypothalamus. The pituitary glands' simultaneous release of the adrenocorticotropic hormone triggered her adrenal cortex to release corticosteroids and her hands grew sweaty and her heart rate and blood pressure would rise rapidly. It would not stop until she focused on the counting again. The physical effects that Dr. Sweets would identify as "rage" had occurred in her 37 times in the last sixty days. Angela glanced through her office window with a strange look for the 179th time. Brennan returned to her computer screen as her hands relaxed and her heartbeat slowed. She ignored the count in her head of the number of times someone had called her "Bones." _Zero_. Her subconscious was forcefully squelched.

When she was at home and her brain wandered from whatever she read or listened to, the second odd feeling in her chest began. This one she could not identify and it bothered her. It was a gaping, yawning maw of blackness swallowing her whole, as if the temperature in her apartment had dropped suddenly and without scientific reason. She forced herself to count again.

The number of visitors to her door in the middle of the night: 0. She reminded herself she should be grateful for uninterrupted sleep.

The number of dinners with friends at her apartment at odd hours: 0. Eating that late at night was unhealthy and it was a good habit to kick.

The number of times she had gotten up at 10 or 11 PM and gone back in to work through the night rather than sleep: 11. She loved her work and consequently felt the odd impulse to continue her work sometimes when others were gone for the day. She liked the quiet of the lab when no one else was present.

Now, she sat in her office and counted the number of tiny dents on the wall closer to her desk where her former partner had often tossed a rubber ball back and forth while bouncing ideas for cases off of her. _Steve McQueen, Bones. It's about the attitude._

There were 43 of them.

"Bren?" Angela's voice broke through her momentary focus on numbers and she frowned involuntarily at the reminder that there was other work to be done, other things to count. "Are you okay, sweetie?"

"I'm fine, Angela." She tilted her head away from the wall and back toward her computer screen. "Did you finish the facial reconstruction on the latest victim? I told Turner that we would get it to him by today if at all possible."

The artist hesitated only momentarily before stepping into the office completely, her sketchpad held in front of her almost like a shield. "Here you go. I scanned copies into the system for everyone to reference and an automated search through the missing persons database and the Virginia DMV is running on my computer already. I just wanted to let you know that I finished."

"Thank you." Brennan didn't look away from the computer or the keys in front of her. Sixty-two key strokes of her thumb across the spacebar on the computer keyboard. "I'll let Turner know."

"That's it." The glass door to her office slid shut with a bang that startled her and tore her gaze from the computer screen for the first time since her friend had entered the room. She felt a pang of guilt at the knowledge that she had not been particularly friendly to Angela in the last two months. "I can't handle seeing you like this anymore."

"I don't understand." She felt the heat of a blush cross her face as the automatic lie registered. "I—"

"It hurts me to see you hurting this badly, sweetie." Angela perched on the edge of the desk next to her and leaned forward, her eyes dark and sad. "Why won't you talk to me about why you are upset?"

"I'm not upset." She struggled to maintain the even expression on her face that she had come to rely on over the last few weeks. "I'm sorry I haven't gone out with you recently, but I've been very busy here. You know that." There were 9 shiny silver balls hanging from each of Angela's earrings and she recounted three times to be sure. Her composure held.

"Bullshit." Brennan gaped at her friend who never cursed at her. "You're miserable and it is so brutally obvious that even the lab assistants are worried about you."

"I don't know what you are talking about. Aren't we doing more work than ever before? The office is running at an optimum tempo and I don't think that would be happening if everyone was worried about a non-existent problem in my office." There were 16 different colored semi-precious stones in the belt around Angela's waist.

"When are we going to talk about it, Bren?"

"When are we going to talk about what?" There were 7 pens on the desk in front of her.

"About Booth." Brennan's fingers clenched together involuntarily and she forced the anger rising through her to show in her eyes as she turned on her friend who insisted on bringing up the same subject every time they were alone.

"There's nothing to discuss. He got a great job offer and he took it. We've got a new liaison with the FBI that is working out just fine and my work is proceeding even faster than before. I don't understand why you keep bringing this up." She searched frantically and noted the 4 pillows on the couch, the 2 pieces of pottery on the wall opposite of her desk.

"When are we going to talk about him leaving?'' Angela leaned into her personal space. "When are you going to say his name again?"

The number of times she had said his name since that meeting in the diner: 0. The counting shuttered and came to a stop and that yawning void that only manifested at home opened again suddenly. Her throat worked with the urge to reject Angela's words but nothing came out verbally, air swallowed in and was expelled painfully.

"If you aren't going to talk, I'm going to talk and you're going to listen." Angela's arms were around her shoulders, forcing her up and out of the desk to the couch in her office. Her eyes scanned the room for something to count but her mind had shut down, the empty void sucking her down. Angela's hand forced her head to turn and her eyes to meet those of her dearest friend.

"I know you feel like he abandoned you, sweetie. But you and I both know that's not what he did."

"He did." The words were ripped from her vocal chords and exited her throat with a choppy breath. "He heard something he didn't like and he left."

"I don't know what happened between you two, but I have a feeling about the general gist of it." Angela's eyes searched hers for an answer, but Brennan's esophagus felt sealed shut again. "He told you he loved you and wanted to be with you and you said no."

Tears welled in her eyes and the counting would not come back no matter how hard she tried. That empty feeling, so terrible when compared to the defining scientific characteristics of the anger she could quantify scared her. "He wanted something I couldn't give him. I couldn't give it, Ang."

"And he left because he needed to move on with his life." Angela's words were gentle and calm, no judgment for or against her actions implied, but the words did not relax or calm her. As if a switch was flipped, that desolation began to burn with the familiar rage. She latched onto it with a vengeance and felt it spew out of her throat with harsh words.

"He told me that life goes on. But what he really meant was that it wasn't enough for him. Our friendship wasn't enough for him. He needed to move on and end our friendship because he needed to find something – someone – better." She stood up to pace, the words she had been thinking coming out faster and faster. The words were bitten out as her teeth clamped down forcefully between each one. "He told me he would always be there and that he would be my friend. He told me we could still work together no matter what, that we were a team. He just LEFT, Angela." The urge to scream out her frustration was overwhelming.

Angela's gaze was gentle on hers. "He didn't leave you, sweetie. He was doing what he had to do for himself."

"But he PROMISED. He swore he would be there for me." Her hands were clenched at her sides. "He lied."

"Temperance." Angela's voice had turned hard and her eyes lifted in shock to see her friend look truly angry. "He did not lie to you. He did not deliberately hurt you."

"I know he didn't." Her admission was quiet and profound and Angela's mouth opening to deliver a new monologue snapped shut in surprise. "He left because I wasn't enough for him."

"Oh, no." Angela was up now and her friend's arms were around her, but they were not the arms that Brennan so desperately wanted to feel around her. The arms she had both cursed and longed for in the last sixty days. "It had nothing to do with whether you were enough for him. You were so much for him. You were everything to him. You know that."

"I couldn't be what he wanted me to be, Ang." Her eyes closed and her head dropped so her chin rested close to her chest. "He wanted more than I could give him. Why couldn't he just be happy with being my friend?"

"Because he knew that you cared for him as more than a friend, just like he loves you with everything in him." Angela sighed deeply. "You've changed so much since you met him. Since I met you. You've become a different person, a better person. He had so much to do with that. But he never wanted you to be anything but what you were. He loved what you _are_."

"It wasn't enough." The tears were starting now. They had been hiding for so long but she couldn't hold them anymore. Angela shuffled them forward into her private bathroom and shut the door, the lock echoing loudly as her tears continued to fall. "It's never enough, Ang. They all leave. Everybody leaves because I'm not enough."

"You're right, sweetie. He did want more from you than what you had already given." Brennan looked up in shock at her friend, who smiled sadly before crouching down to be eye-level with where the destroyed doctor sat on the toilet seat. "He wanted you to be brutally honest and not second-guess yourself, which is exactly what you did when he told you what he was feeling. You and I both know that what you feel for Booth is beyond friendship, beyond love even. You two are connected like nobody I have ever seen."

"I don't believe in love, Angela. I don't believe that human beings were designed to love only one person." She wrung her hands in front of her. "You know I don't believe that and I haven't for a long time."

"Then tell me what you do believe." She rocked on her heels for a moment, thinking, before she spoke again softly. "Do you believe that he cared for you more than anyone else?"

"Other than his son, yes." She could not deny the irrefutable truth that he valued her, cherished her, cared for her, and believed that he loved her.

"Do you believe that he was one of the most important people in your life?"

"The most important." She opened her watery eyes and searched her friend's sympathetic ones.

"When he isn't around, do you feel like all the light and happiness have gone out of your world and you don't know how to go on without him?" Angela's voice had dropped to a whisper and ached with her own deep pain.

"Yes." Her voice was a broken sigh.

"That's love, sweetheart. Whether you want to call it that or not – that's the devotion, the connection between two people that is undeniable and unbreakable. What you feel right now is exactly what he feels. And I can guarantee you that wherever he is in Philadelphia he is feeling the same way you are right now. His heart hurts and his brain is trying to move on but it can't – just like yours can't." Her hands tightened almost painfully on Brennan's shoulders and her voice became almost frenzied, forcefully trying to make its point. "Logically, Brennan, don't you agree that when an individual cannot survive emotionally without another person in their life that indicates there is a connection exceeding friendship or sex between the two? That there is a chemical reaction or emotional touchstone that has been established that is very necessary to the survival of those two individuals?"

"I—" Her mind was racing to examine Angela's logic, to find a method with which to disprove it.

"All creatures rely on certain things to survive – food, water, air. Human beings need affection and touch to thrive. If a human is lucky enough to find someone who's very presence becomes as necessary as food or water or air, it would be ridiculous to not desire and fight for that contact. Wouldn't that human being be sentencing themselves to a less fulfilled life?" Angela was searching her eyes for something and she wondered if it was the understanding that was beginning to filter through the jumble of her thoughts and grief.

"That's madness." She couldn't resist the final urge to argue, although her mind was swimming.

"Love is madness." Angela smiled then, tears streaming down her face. "Love is madness and greatness wrapped into one. To be truly dependent on another person to live a full life is both glorious and terrifying. The fear you felt when he told you his feelings was nothing that everyone else hasn't ever felt when in the same position."

Brennan could not respond as her mind raced and tried to process what Angela was saying.

"The question that remains, Bren…." Angela shook her shoulders slightly, forcing her to focus on the next words. "Will you let the fear continue to define your actions, or will you use the logic and emotion granted to humans above animals and realize that he is your necessary? Your air, water, and food?"

"I—" Brennan felt the crystallization of knowledge within her. That glorious feeling when a difficult problem suddenly became clear, a math equation became second nature, a chemical component was understood. "I want to." She did. And in the next moment, her face crumpled with the reminder that she had lost the opportunity to do the very thing she had only now realized was within her power. "But it's too late."

"It is never too late." Angela's words were vehement. "Never."

"I wouldn't even know where to begin to talk to him." She stared at the floor.

"How about we start with something simple? How about we start with his name?" Angela held her breath and squeezed Brennan's shoulders in an effort to physically support her.

The word felt strange rough in her throat as it passed into the air for the first time in over two months. "Seeley Booth."

* * *

Angela Montenegro made her way back to her office and shut the door, the music flowing softly out of her stereo system. She stared for a long time at the painting on the wall over the couch in her office, the piece itself a reminder of her life when she created it. She heard the door open quietly and she knew who opened it without having to look, his familiar scent in the air. Her heart seized.

"Will she be alright?" Jack's voice was quiet and thoughtful. Her eyes swung over to see him lean against the wall, his arms folded, and his face pensive.

"I think so." She turned back to the wall. "I told her that if a human is lucky enough to find someone whose very presence becomes as necessary as food or water or air, it would be ridiculous to not fight for that contact. That human would be sentencing themselves to a less fulfilled life."

"Profound." Jack smiled crookedly at her with a wistful and sad look in his eyes. "But true, I'd say."

"Jack." Her voice cracked and a tear trailed down her face. Before she could speak again, his arms were around her and his face was buried in her hair, his hands shaking. Their bodies were vibrating with the emotions running between two of them, the tension of the last two years painful in its intensity. "Jack."

"I know, Ang." His voice was shaking, too.

"I never stopped, Jack." She cried harder, more sobs than cries - violent and painful. "I never stopped loving you."

"I know, baby." He gripped her tighter and pulled her onto the couch, onto his lap. His lips pressed against her hair, against her temple, never stopping. His hands gripped her tightly, encircling her, holding her together. "I never stopped loving you. I couldn't. How could I?"

In the arms of the man she loved, who still loved her, Angela Montenegro searched for her necessary - for her air and water. She buried her head in his chest and his face disappeared into her hair. Her hands clenched tightly around his torso, her fingers digging into the ridges of his back. His tears dripped into her hair. They both quietly and thoroughly went to pieces with the profound realization of everything they had lost and missed and wasted.


	3. Questions

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

**Author's Note:** Thank you SO much to everyone who has reviewed so far. I appreciate each and every word you leave for me. I'm really enjoying writing this story and every single one of your reviews just motivates me to write more.

**Author's Playlist:** Isn't it odd how each of our senses can bring memories and emotion? The smell of butter cookies always reminds me of my grandmother. While writing this chapter I often listened to Joshua Radin's _No Envy No Fear_. It made me think of fear and pain and how we can rise above it if we try, just like our two favorite characters could.

CHAPTER THREE: Questions

"_Some are scared to fly so high, well this is how we have to try…"_ - Joshua Radin

Every morning he got up to work out in the gym for an hour. He showered, made breakfast, and brushed his teeth. He picked out a suit and contemplated wearing his favorite belt buckle before he again decided not to. The black socks were the closest to the front of the drawer so they went on first. He wondered if he would have the urge to wear anything colorful again soon, to even have a personality beyond that of "boss." It had been three months now, and every day still hurt. He walked to work each morning and watched the seething mass of humanity that was downtown Philadelphia push and pull like the currents in the ocean as other human beings went to work, went home, broke up, made up, hated each other, and loved. He buried himself in work and counted the days until each visit with his son.

The special agent standing at the end of the conference room table had been droning on about new financial regulations for almost 45 minutes. In the dim twilight of the room, the projection screen with what Booth had begun to mentally refer to as "the power point show of death" was the only bright and shining star, drawing every eye toward it. Unfortunately, most of those eyes, including his, were now finding it difficult to stay open and absorb what Jacob Straw was describing, although it was important and definitely pertinent to the money laundering case they were working in conjunction with the Secret Service. He pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself that he was the authority in the room and falling asleep while listening to Straw, despite the Ben Stein monotone voice that was echoing around the room at a sedate and steady pace that had not altered in volume since the beginning of the briefing. Booth would not have been shocked if Straw had ever been shot and his response would have been the word "Ouch" in the exact same tone of voice.

Booth missed being in the field with his partner.

In the three months that he had been in Philadelphia, he had grown to appreciate the city and his position to a certain extent. He wouldn't say he liked it, as he was having trouble still caring about much of anything other than work. He didn't like the bureaucratic nightmare that came with being the SAC and he didn't appreciate having to deal with the personnel issues, particularly with the older agents he was now supervising. Several of them were clearly salivating over Thomas' job before he left and were beyond irritated that a young whippersnapper that was barely 40 years old was now telling them what to do. He tried to remember that those agents with 20 and 30 years of experience under their belts were individuals that could be learned from and should be respected. It was hard to remember that when Rooney repeatedly mispronounced his name on purpose in an effort to just be plain irritating. He mentally made a note that if it happened again, the man would be on stakeout duty for at least 90 days.

The lights were suddenly up and his mind returned to the table in front of him where 20 special agents were gazing at him, waiting for parting comments and words of wisdom. "Thanks for the briefing, Straw. Please forward copies of your presentation to everyone in e-mail so we can use them as a reference."

"Yes, sir." The voice didn't alter and Booth had to squash the urge to laugh.

"Everyone needs to make sure that they know these regulations backward and forward. I don't want any slip-ups or mistakes during this case with the Secret Service." He leaned back in his chair and for a moment remembered himself sitting in one of the chairs at the other end of the table. "Kettering, you are on point for this operation. I want you to pick five other individuals for the team. The rest of you should be familiar with the case, at least a Cliff Note's version of it, in the event that anyone needs to sub as a pinch-hitter." _I don't know what that means._

He felt an odd chill pass through him as the sound of her voice echoed through his mind and the meeting broke up. It wasn't happening now as often as it had when he first arrived. The well-traveled route to his office went by the break room and he filled his coffee cup before heading back to his desk.

"Agent Booth, you have fourteen phone messages." Myra Gressling was thirty years old with thick red hair that tumbled down her back and a shining, porcelain complexion. She was his secretary. He had wondered momentarily when he met her if Thomas had simply liked the look of the tailored suits she wore to the office each day with stiletto heels that were only ideal if you sat for a large part of your day like Myra did. But he was pleasantly surprised to find that she was good at her job, and he liked that she bossed him around on occasion to get his ass to all the meetings he never knew a SAC had to attend. She smiled warmly at him as she passed the very neat but ridiculously large stack of messages from his one hour absence from the office. "Your son Parker also called and asked that you call him back."

"Thanks, Myra." He slipped into the custom-ordered chair and thanked his lucky stars that the headaches of authority came with some perks. The phone was in his hand in seconds and ringing.

"Hey buddy, what are you doing home from school?" He couldn't help but smile when he spoke to his son. He had stuck to his guns and had spent one entire weekend with him each month that he had been gone. They had eaten cheese steaks and pizza, visited the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, and sat through two Phillies games with overpriced hot dogs, sunburns, and ridiculously happy photographs to show for it. He silently thanked Rebecca again for her flexibility and understanding and made another mental note to send her flowers.

"Dad! You'll never guess what happened today." Parker's enthusiasm was practically tangible, even through the phone lines.

"Aliens kidnapped you from school and forced you to stay home?"

"Daaaaaaaad." He stifled a grin at the face he just knew his son was making and prayed that these moments didn't end when his son grew up. "Mom brought me home because I fell and hurt my chin."

"What?" He sat up straight with shock and fear, even as his mind knew that Parker would not be calling him himself if it were serious. "I'm okay, Dad. Dr. Cam gave me three stitches in my chin!"

His heart hit a staccato beat before resuming its new pounding. "Who gave you stitches?"

"Dr. Cam, your friend who works with Dr. Bones." He winced at the name. He had not seen her in three months and he still winced.

"What happened, Parker?"

"We were on a field trip today, Dad, at the Jeffersonian, to learn about dinosaurs. You know I love the Tyrannosaurus the best."

"That was my favorite, too."

"Anyway, I tripped and fell on the floor and my chin started bleeding. It was gushing everywhere, Dad. All of the girls totally screamed. It was _awesome_."

Booth chuckled involuntarily. Like father like son. "But you're all fixed up now?"

"Yeah. Dr. Cam heard what happened from the lady who was telling us about the dinosaurs and she came and gave me stitches." His son laughed again. "The needle was _huge_, Dad. All the guys in my class are totally jealous that I am going to have a scar when the stitches come out."

"Lucky you. She's a good doctor."

"Yeah! She said to tell you that you better call her or she will find you and make you sorry." Parker laughed. "I would not want to make Dr. Cam angry."

Booth laughed fully this time. He had sent Cam three separate e-mails since his arrival in Philadelphia but he hadn't called yet. His heart clenched again and before he could think to stop himself, the words were tumbling out. "Did you talk to Dr. Bones?"

"Yeah, Dad. She came in to say hello." He felt the tension in his gut and the chill in his heart that he thought was going to end when he moved to Philadelphia. Instead, he became better friends with them. "She asked me to tell you hello and to say that she misses you."

His eyes slammed shut and he turned his back to his office door in case anyone looked in as they burned with unshed tears. "Thanks for passing the messages, buddy. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry to hear about your accident but it sounds like you got pretty good care at the museum."

"You're coming next weekend to see me, right Dad?"

"Yeah, buddy." He cleared his throat and continued. "I will be there on Friday afternoon to pick you up from school. You let me know if you want to come here or we could stay in D.C."

"I will, Dad."

"Okay, buddy, I've got to get to work. You know the bad guys never take any time off to talk to their kids." He forced himself to sound happy and light. "I'll call you again really soon. Love you."

"Love you too, Dad. Bye!" His son had hung up the phone in his pre-adolescent exuberance before Booth could finish saying his goodbyes. The headset slipped quietly into the cradle as he stared at it, his past come to life in verbal form. His eyes swung over to the window in his office and he stared at the skyline of Philadelphia and his half-decent view of the Delaware River.

In three months, he'd slowly started to function again. He had started to wake up in the mornings and sometimes it took him a few minutes before he remembered where he was and where she was. It still hurt, that hot fire poker in his abdomen, but it was slowly dulling with time. Odd moments would rip the wound back open, like his son's comments. Sometimes it was a brunette on the street who had tilted her head the way Bones did when she was thinking deeply. Sometimes it was a comment or a colloquialism that he found himself mentally making a note to use with her before he realized that she was the one who told him goodbye.

The first month he was in Philadelphia, he sent her four e-mails. One for every week that he began in his new office. He deliberately kept them friendly but light in an effort to reinforce his promise to her that he had not abandoned her. She did not reply to any of them, so he stopped writing. In the draft folder of his e-mail were 26 draft messages to her with stories of his day, declarations of his feelings for her, and angry rants asking why she was cutting him out of her life with all the delicacy of a meat cleaver. _Good luck in Philadelphia._

Her parting words were still painful in their insincerity.

When he left the office that night and wandered on the side of the river toward his apartment, he thought about the leaps and bounds he had made personally and professionally since leaving D.C. His relationships with Parker and Rebecca were going well, even better than he had hoped for. His job was taking off, and despite the irritation of a few bad seeds in the office, his agents were mostly by-the-book but still out-of-the-box thinkers, a combination he loved and encouraged. His feet slowly ground to a halt and he sat down on a stone bench, his eyes on the water in front of him. It was early October now, and far too cold for him to be sitting outside by the water, but the cold air felt good and he breathed in the crisp fall air that tasted like winter was around the corner.

"Agent Booth?" The voice surprised him and he turned to see Myra walking toward him in a brilliant scarlet coat that glowed warmly against the backdrop of twilight. "Everything okay?"

"Just fine, Myra. On your way home?" He forced a smile at her and gestured toward the seat next to him. "Care to take a seat?"

She laughed and shook her head negatively. "I'm from Philadelphia, Agent Booth. If I look at the river anymore, I might throw something at it."

"I was just taking a breather. It's not quite freezing out yet so I thought I should appreciate it while I could."

Her breath was very slightly frosty in the air and she smirked at him. "You must be warm-blooded. I grew up in the snow and it still freezes me."

"Well, I am wearing pants while you are wearing a knee-length skirt. It makes a difference." He froze suddenly and wondered if he had just technically sexually harassed his secretary by making a comment about her clothing. Her laughter broke through his momentary pause.

"Good point. But those are the sacrifices we make for fashion." She sat down on the bench next to him despite her previous commentary to the contrary and leaned against the wood-paneled back, her hands tucked firmly into her pockets. "It can be beautiful out here, no matter how many times you've seen it."

He nodded next to her but did not respond. One thing he had learned about Myra was that she did not always need a response.

"What did your son have to say?"

He winced at the reminder of his conversation with his son and the staccato beat of his heart at the thought of Bones' name reared up in his chest. "Just wanted to pass some messages on from some old friends of mine that he ran into."

She hummed in response but did not speak. He wondered if she would ask him who the friends were. All of his office knew he previously worked with Dr. Temperance Brennan. Myra had one of her books in the left middle drawer of her desk. He had found it while looking for white-out late one night.

"You know, if you ever need to talk to someone about the real reason you left DC, I'm happy to lend an ear." Her offer was genuine and without pity, and surprised the hell out of him. He sucked in a deep breath before he realized how revealing it was. "I'm no shrink, but I've been told I can listen pretty well."

"I—" He wasn't sure how to respond to this genuinely thoughtful offer from a woman who was his subordinate. He found himself speaking before he could stop himself, explaining the entire story to a woman he barely knew but in whom he had found a bit of an odd Sweets replacement. She nodded at some points but did not comment until he reached the end of his story and his arrival in Philadelphia. She turned to look at him then, her eyes burning and her shoulders hunched against the cold. They had been sitting there for 45 minutes.

Her voice held that odd cynicism he had found reflected in his own tone before he left DC and wondered who had broken he heart like his had been. She pulled a mitten out of her pocket to examine invisble lint. "I think you've done plenty of thinking on this topic all on your own. So all I will say is, keep doing what you're doing. Eventually the ache fades and becomes dull, and then manageable, a nd the one day you wake up and you realize that you've changed and moved on and at some point you stopped being in love with someone and you just remember being in love. And then you really only remember the good stuff. Because it was good, wasn't it?"

He nodded. "It was good. There was a lot of good – some of it was even great."

"Just keep remembering that when it sometimes feels like all that anger and bitterness is going to crawl up out of you and overwhelm the good. Someday there will just be the good and the anger will be the memory instead." She tucked her mitten-covered hand back into her jacket.

"What if—" He paused before voicing the thought that he had been harboring since his arrival. "What if I don't want to forget and have it all become a memory? What if I still want the good parts?"

"Then the only question that remains is: what are you willing to accept? Is the friendship and the good worth the pain and not getting the reciprocation you want?" Her voice was quiet and even and he shuddered at the questions that ran through his mind over and over again.

"I just don't know. The friendship isn't enough but the nothing…that's more painful than even the friendship." He sighed heavily and looked across the river at the twinkling lights of New Jersey. "I don't know."

"If you ever figure that one out, then you'll know what you need to do." She stood up and stuck her mitten-clad hand out to shake his. His fingers folded around hers slowly and he wondered why he didn't feel more uncomfortable sharing something so personal with a woman who worked for him.

"Good night, Agent Booth. I hope you figure out the answers you're looking for."

"Good night, Myra. Be safe getting home."

"I will. See you tomorrow." She didn't hesitate or look back, but walked resolutely forward toward the next stoplight to turn left and disappear behind a building, probably toward the subway. He wondered what idiot had turned her down and when someone younger than him had gotten so much wiser. He stood up and started walking again as he registered that the cold was starting to really seep through his clothing.

What was he willing to accept? He had taken the job in Philadelphia, resolute in the knowledge that a change was for the best for everyone involved. But three months later, the ache was deeper than ever and he was beginning to think it was from being away from her.

The real question was: did he have the guts to go after her and at least keep the good stuff?

* * *

"Cynthia Neilson was jogging at about 0530 this morning when her dog sniffed something strange and dragged her 200 feet through the underbrush of Fairmount Park." Booth's head swiveled even as he walked to eye the 120 pound Labrador whose tongue was lolling out in a strange dog smile and whose leash was held by a woman who looked as if she weighed 20 pounds less than the dog. He turned his attention back to Jimmy Burns. "Looks like two victims in a single shallow grave. We're not quite sure what the dog smelled since there is really not much left here, but it's a good thing he did or its possible nobody would have found them."

"Not really a good day for jogging." He shook his head in the rain again and lifted his jacket collar to shield his neck from the chill.

"It wasn't raining at 530 apparently."

"Any kind of identification on the victims yet?"

"None. There were no wallets, no clothes, nothing easy. Nora's saying that they are going to have a hell of a time identifying these people, considering how long they've been here. They're estimating 3-4 years." Burns sighed and wiped the rain from his forehead. "It's shaping up to be a real pain in the ass case."

"Those are the best kind, Burns. Don't forget that." He stepped under the last low-hanging branch and got a good luck at the unfortunate souls lying in the ground in front of him. Two skeletons with some preserved remains, no clothing, no identifying hair or faces. Rain was dripping at a slower pace through the heavy tree cover and into the ground itself, splattering on the cops standing around. He sighed under his breath and silently agreed with Burns' assessment that this case was going to be a pain in the ass.

Crime Scene Unit member Nora Pembry was leaning over the open hole in the ground, her body already covered in the October sludge that Philadelphia was regularly home to when it rained, collecting a sample of the earth beneath the body on the left. "A man and a woman, but other than that I can't tell you anything without getting back to the lab. These two are just skeletons at this point. You know I'm better with flesh."

"Any idea on cause of death?" He squatted down on the other side of the makeshift grave and snapped a latex glove onto his hand before leaning down to look closer. He wasn't an idiot – he had learned a few things from the squints. He ran a finger gently over one of the man's ribs, cleaning off the grime and feeling slightly odd nicks in the bone.

"No clue. There's too much mud and too much time here for me to do anything without a lab and some more hi-tech equipment."

"Well, we're definitely looking at a homicide – this was no accident." He stood up again and shook out his feet. They still twinged in the cold, the old injury a constant reminder of his life before the FBI. "Burns, run it down for me."

"Sure thing, Boss. Man and a woman in a shallow grave in the middle of a major park in Philly. No clothing remnants at all, but I find it hard to believe they would have disintegrated completely like the flesh. I'm gonna guess they were naked when they were put into the ground. And they look almost posed, as if someone arranged them together."

Nora spoke up from the ground again. "Definitely posed. The arms have moved a little, I think. But they were laid in the ground with their arms and legs entangled. It's going to take a little while for me to separate the bones between them."

"What does that tell us?" Burns was junior, but learning quickly, and Booth liked to challenge him.

"Well, the fact that they were unclothed and not covered in any way before being put in the ground suggests the individual who placed them there didn't thrive on ceremony and didn't care to cover them, which suggests a killer that had no emotional ties to the victims. More likely a planned crime than a crime of passion. But that's a bit of a contradiction with the pose, which almost comes across as that of lovers."

"Both valid points." He shook his head again to dislodge the rain. "Burns, get a tent set up in here ASAP so that Nora can finish up with the scene and we can try to retain any additional crime scene integrity that the rain hasn't already killed."

"Already on it, Boss. Aarons should be here in another five minutes with the tent and the crime scene boys are spreading out. Nora thinks we're missing a bone or two and we're not sure if maybe that Labrador picked one up. The owner says no, but we're not 100% sure yet." He shrugged. "It's been too long since these guys were placed here for me to have any hope of possibly finding a murder weapon but we're going to walk the grid anyway."

"Sounds like a good start." He pulled off the latex glove and dropped it into Nora's bag. "I'm going to head back to the office and leave this scene in your capable hands, Burns. Give me an update by 5 o'clock today, okay?"

"Sure thing." Burns was already turned around talking to another agent and Booth turned to make his way back to the main trail within the park, toward his dry car and a desk filled with paperwork.

* * *

"Well, I've reached a dead end." Nora Pembry slumped into the chair in front of his desk, her scrubs looking as if they had seen better days. Booth leaned back in his chair and eyed her thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't identify these victims with the equipment that I've got and I'm definitely not good enough with just skeletons." She stared at him pointedly. "We need to call in a specialist."

His heart paused before resuming its regular rhythm. "Are you sure?"

"I'm telling you this as a medical professional – I can't do anything more with what I've got and the samples we took from around the body are giving me nothing." She sighed. "You know as well as I do Agent Booth that I hate to lose, but there's just nothing more I can do. I prefer the juicy, flesh-covered ones – I definitely know how to do more with them."

"Alright. I'll see what we can do about getting you some help." He was proud that his voice didn't shake.

"Thanks, Boss." She was out the door and the glass was shut before he could respond. He looked at Myra's red hair through the glass wall of his office and thought about the question she had asked him, the question that he wasn't quite sure he could answer just yet.

Booth picked up the phone and dialed the number he knew by heart.

* * *

_Reviews = love. :)_


	4. Learning

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

**Author's Note: **I appreciate each and every single word of each and every review from all of you who read this story. Please let me know what you like and don't like. I have tried to respond to each review and if I have missed you, I apologize. Please know how much I appreciate it. And please, to those who are not registered and to whom I cannot respond, please know how much I appreciate your kind words.

**Author's Playlist:** Take a moment to listen to Civilias' _Anything But You_.

CHAPTER FOUR: Learning

"_The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."_ – Franklin D. Roosevelt

As the sun rose and the butter yellow of its rays poured through the tall windows on the eastern wall of the room, creeping across the dark hardwood floors and eventually onto the luxurious dark blue Egyptian cotton sheets, two bodies twisted in the early moments of wakefulness. Bodies shifted and moved slightly as the light began to gently wake them, hands touching briefly and sleep muscles involuntarily tensing and relaxing as each registered subconsciously that morning had arrived. The woman's eyes fluttered open and closed again as she sleepily reached for the warm male body next to her. His arms encircled her firmly and pulled her face into his chest. Angela smiled her favorite secret smile into his flesh and let out a deep sigh of contentment.

"Good morning." Jack's voice was rough with sleep and she felt her stomach flip-flop in the most familiar and delicious of ways. "Did you sleep well?"

"Better than I have in a long time," she answered, honestly, that smile forming again, her lips pulling back to reveal white teeth that longed to nip at the flesh beneath them. She wondered if he could feel it against his skin and if he knew what she was doing, what she was thinking. At one point they were connected enough that he would have. She felt the now familiar momentary pang of regret for the time that had been lost and then banished it firmly for the last time. After their hours of honest and sometimes heartbreaking discussion last night and in the two weeks before that, she was ready to let go of the past and move forward.

"You know, I think this is a first for us." His hands tightened even more, forcing her face up to his, the heavy-lidded gaze of sleep on his face doing little to hide the growing heat in his eyes. "Sleeping in my bed and actually just sleeping."

Her breath quickened involuntarily. She felt her body respond to his without conscious thought, with the flutter of anticipation in her heart and stomach, and the pooling of liquid heat between her legs. His thigh, clothed in the pajama pants she had purchased for him years before with Beaker from the Muppet Babies on them, slid between her thighs. She was too distracted to laugh at the familiar cartoon. His lips settled on hers softly and then with more pressure, pink against pink, pushing and pulling – learning again.

It was the first time that Jack had really kissed her in quite a while. They took their time, exploring what was familiar and at the same time different. Their lives, though connected through work, had taken them in many different directions and their bodies had changed. His tongue caressed her bottom lip and an involuntary, quiet exhalation of breath that sounded more like a moan vibrated from her lungs to his. He inhaled it quickly, drawing it into himself as if to savor it, and pressed his lips against hers again, the subtle opening of her mouth an invitation for him to explore further.

The knocking on the door of his bedroom halted any further adventures. Jack's forehead leaned against her shoulder with a groan that was anything but satisfied and she giggled in response. She would never get used to the fact that Jack actually had a butler; a butler who frequently knocked on his bedroom door at odd times. She frowned at the clock on the bedside table and the reminder that it was a work day. Apparently 7:30 was not considered too early to knock on the door.

"What is it Max?" Jack was aggravated but trying to hide it. Max would not have interrupted unless it was important. She brushed a kiss across his shoulder and reveled in the happy sigh that released against her skin.

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir, but Dr. Temperance Brennan is knocking on the front door and she claims she has urgent business with Ms. Montenegro that cannot wait." His voice was respectful and calm through the wooden doors. Angela sat up swiftly, immediately knowing what this must be about, Jack shifting away just as quickly and easing out of the bed.

"Please show her to the green living room and tell her we'll be down in a moment." Jack was already pulling on a t-shirt and bathrobe. She barely glanced at her shorts and tank top as she pulled her hair back into a hasty ponytail. She wondered when she had become so parochial as to wear pajamas to bed. Jack's hand slowed her quick march to the door and spun her around to face him.

"While I enjoy sleeping with you with nothing between us, I had to tell you that you look beautiful right now in this outfit." He pressed his lips firmly against hers before murmuring again, his lips still brushing against hers. "Take care of our girl while I help Max make breakfast. She could probably use some coffee."

"I love you, Jack." She wanted her eyes to convey that she truly meant it and she knew they did when his answering smile was as warm as the one she could feel involuntarily spreading across her own face.

"I love you, Ang." He stole her lips one final time and moved toward the door, heading toward the cavernous kitchen in which she longed to experiment once again. She moved in the other direction, toward the green sitting room, the most relaxed of the rooms in this home for receiving guests. She wondered when Jack would finally get around to the redecorating he claimed he was always just a month away from.

Brennan was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, her usual upright and rigidly correct posture nowhere to be found. She was hunched over, as if the very life had been sucked out of her and stolen away. Her shoulders dropped and head dipped forward, as if she was curling in to protect herself. Angela had seen this pose several times in the last two weeks. Her gaze was on her hands, and as Angela neared, she realized Brennan held her cell phone delicately, staring at it as if the very thing would bite her.

"Bren?" When her dearest friend raised her head, Angela was shocked to see tears in her eyes. Angela had never seen Brennan outright cry in her presence with the exception of their confrontation in the bathroom so recently, and with a low cry of sympathy she sprang forward to envelop her friend in the hug she knew that she needed. "What is it? What happened?"

"Booth—" She choked on a quiet sob and leaned into Angela's shoulder, her fingers clutching at Angela's shoulders, her delicate frame shaking slightly.

"Oh my God, did something happen to Booth?" Angela froze as the sudden fear of something terrible happening to the man that she loved as a brother washed through her. Brennan did not respond but continued to stand, silently. "BRENNAN!"

The loud cry startled her friend, who breathed deeply before releasing a watery breath. "No, no, he's fine. Nothing happened to him."

"Then what is going on?"

"Angie," her friend's eyes closed involuntarily with the weight of what she said, "You were wrong. It's too late, Angela. He doesn't want me anymore."

Never had she even considered the possibility that Booth would reject an overture made by the woman that he loved and confusion filled her as she stared into the devastated face of the woman she loved like a sister. "What happened?"

"He called me." She mumbled the words and slipped to sit into a chair, her body curling protectively into itself again.

"That's good!" Angela sat next to her, forcing the two of them practically on top of each other. Brennan would never admit, but the woman who was so comfortable with dead things craved human touch when emotional events occurred, even as she compartmentalized it away into her brain and pretended nothing ever changed.

"He called about a case, Angie. I missed the call because I was in Limbo and left my cell phone in my office." She sighed heavily and Angela almost rolled her eyes before taking charge.

"You sound like you're fifteen. Let's listen to the message together. I'm sure that you are overreacting." She grabbed the phone herself and dialed for voicemail. In moments, his familiar, rich voice was speaking to them. Angela immediately recognized the hesitancy in his tone and her heart ached for both of her friends who were so hurt and desperate to figure out how to be together.

_Hey Bones. Uh…sorry to bother you at work. I…uh…we've got a case here in Philly that is giving us some trouble. A few bodies with nothing much left. Our ME has asked for some special assistance and the….uh…well, the Jeffersonian knows what it's doing with dead bodies. I'll give Cam a call and officially make the request in a few minutes, but I just wanted to give you a heads up because….well, because you're the best. Listen, I know things haven't been right between us lately, so if you don't want to come out yourself…um…I would understand. I don't want you to be uncomfortable. Anyway…..thanks……..Bye._

Angela focused on the long pause before he whispered goodbye, as if he were reluctant to hang up the phone and on the very audible tremor in his voice as he whispered his worry that she would reject the opportunity to see him. She turned to her friend and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Calm down. That man is just as in love with you as he was before he left, probably more so." She shook her head in frustration. "Did you ever send him the e-mail I told you to write? Did you ever call him? You've been agonizing over this for weeks!"

"I couldn't decide what to say." Brennan shook her head slowly. "Everything sounded trite or silly or ridiculous. I didn't know how to explain what I was thinking. And then, eventually, it became easier to just let it go and wait to see if he called."

"Is that what you want?" Angela exploded, standing up from the seat, anger in her eyes and voice even as Jack appeared in the doorway with coffee cups. He stopped, frozen, at the scene in front of him. "Do you want to move on and give up and just let him go? After everything you told me? After everything you have thought and said and felt? You're just going to give up?"

She was on a roll now. "The Brennan I know wouldn't be a quitter. The Brennan _I know_ wouldn't give up on someone they loved, wouldn't _abandon_ someone they loved because it was too hard. Is that who you are now?"

"NO." Finally, Angela thought to herself, _finally_ the fire and passion that surged through the veins of Max Keenan was awakening and rushing to the forefront of his daughter's psyche, ready to fight for a worthy cause. Finally, the desire for life was taking over, the desire that Booth himself helped cultivate and tend and grow from a tiny, scared seedling unwilling to reach up out of the earth toward the sun. Brennan stood up from her seat, her face resolute. "No, I'm not going to give him up."

"Then what are you going to do?" Angela goaded her, voice rising even louder, urging her to release all the emotion in a way more fundamental than tears. The emotions between the two women in the room ran higher and higher, anger and frustration and sadness mingling and turning into rage. Angela wanted to push it into Brennan, to mold it into motivation, to force her to realize what she felt and send her forward to do something about it. To break her out of the scared holding pattern her friend was stuck in, even after realizing she felt something for Booth, circling the same spots in her lab and apartment, unable to grasp the possibilities of the future.

"I'm going to go to Philadelphia and tell him how I feel." Brennan was practically shouting at her. "I'm going to tell him that I want him back. I want him here. I want him with me."

"WHY?"

"Because I love him." The words that Angela had expected, prayed, to be delivered in a shout were delivered in a stunned whisper of disbelief as her friend's eyes widened in understanding and acceptance of all the lessons Angela and Booth and Cam and Max and even Hodgins had been teaching her for the last five years. "Without him, my life isn't fulfilling. Without him, the air just isn't enough. You were right, Angie. That is what love is."

"Oh, sweetie." Angela embraced her friend, whose body no longer shook with hidden sobs at the misconstrued message. She was standing straight again, shock on her face and happiness in her eyes, and Angela felt herself begin to tear up even as Jack's hand rested on her shoulder, squeezing firmly in support.

"You've got to tell him, Dr. B." Jack spoke firmly and Brennan turned, surprised to see him, her normal awareness of her surroundings off-kilter as the events around her unfolded. "You have got to go to Philadelphia and tell him how you feel. You've got to tell him to come back here."

"His family needs him, all of his family. We're his family and he needs us just as much as we need him." Angela laughed suddenly, joy spilling out of her chest, despite the tears leaking from her eyes. She had never experienced before what she would literally call tears of joy – until now. "And he needs us. He'll come back for you in a heartbeat."

"I'm going to Philadelphia." She was already moving toward the door and her gait increased as Angela and Jack struggled to keep up. "I'll see you at the lab before I leave. I need to confirm reservations and let Cam know what is going on. I'll pack and meet you at work before heading to the lab this morning."

"Pack something sexy to wear at night." Angela winked and Brennan blushed – she _blushed_. Angela could feel her mouth drop open, shock on her face. How puritan of her friend who was so comfortable with human sexuality.

"I'll do that." She said primly, before walking resolutely out of the door and forward toward her goal with purpose in her steps.

Jack's arms around her tightened and his laugh against her neck was joyful. "You did good, baby."

"She did better, Jack." Angela laughed loudly before turning around to kiss him fiercely. "She did better."

* * *

Cam was waiting in her office when she arrived at the Jeffersonian, carry-on suitcase trailing behind her quickly, her feet moving at a brisk pace. The doctor with whom she often quarreled carried a one-way ticket to Philadelphia and requested only that Brennan keep her informed of the investigation at all times, confirming that Booth had called and placed the official request with her. As she turned to collect her kit and lab computer, Cam caught both her attention and her wrist firmly in her grasp. "Good luck, Dr. Brennan." Her tone was calm and devoid of emotion, but her eyes were smiling. Brennan could only nod in response.

Wendell waved from the platform and wished her a safe trip and watched her walk out of the front door. She wondered if they were all aware of how miserable she had been and where she was now going. She wondered if they pointed and stared and talked about her behind her back, a thought that bothered her until she realized that she would have done the same thing. Brennan was the unusual one here, the little girl who didn't know how to love someone properly but who was slowly learning. She was the blind man finally learning to see. If Booth were here, he would make the appropriate religious references. _It's called faith, Bones._

Well, she had her own faith now, she was finally realizing. She didn't believe in God, or a higher power. She didn't believe in a master creator of the universe or one being that held dominion over all. She didn't believe in organized religion.

She believed in Seeley Booth and in his love for her. She believed that she needed that love in her life.

Max Kennan was standing at the foot of the steps from the entrance to the building, clearly waiting for her, his car parked at the curb – illegally, she noted. She did not, however, comment on the vehicle's location, but instead loaded her bag into the trunk swiftly as he got into the car and sat in the passenger seat without a word, smiling in her father's direction. Her two feet pushed against the floor of the passenger side of the car, mentally willing the car to go faster, faster, faster. Now that she had made the decision to go, to see him, to speak with him, she wanted to do it in person. E-mail was impersonal. Phone calls could be misinterpreted. Booth could read people, but the one person she realized he could read better than anyone else was her. He read her eyes and her voice and her heart. But he couldn't do any of that when they weren't face-to-face. _Faster. Faster. _

Max hugged her at the airport curb and wished her luck. As if everyone in her life was lining up to cheer her on. She accepted the support. She signed an autograph at the counter for the woman who printed out her boarding pass and thanked the young man who helped her transport the heavy portable lab kit to the plane. _Faster. Faster. _

She sat in the first row of the small plane taking her from Washington Reagan Airport to Philadelphia International Airport. Carefully, she outlined exactly what she wanted to say to him with pencil and paper. All the logical arguments for why he should return to Washington. All her thoughts over the last three months and her realization that he was as vital to her as the air her lungs required and the oxygen that pumped through her body, carried by red blood cells.

Brennan pondered the outline she had written feverishly and wondered if Booth would listen to it. She reminded herself of her newly discovered religion, her faith in him that for so long she had accepted without appreciating, and wrote more.

Everything she valued in her life, the science, the logic, she had learned. She learned from the masters of each discipline. Doctors and professors who knew more about bones and tissues, minerals and chemicals, human civilizations and rituals – until she had surpassed them and learned more and she became the teacher. She grew and learned and was stronger. Every time she found something new, a puzzle or enigma, she probed and questioned and worked at it until she unlocked or untied the solution and she added it to her mental cabinet of knowledge, secure that forever after that she would have that answer.

She could think of no one who knew more about love than Seeley Booth. He loved his country and the men he fought with in the military. He loved his job and helping people, even if they didn't deserve it, or want it, or appreciate it. He loved his son more than life itself. He loved his friends at the lab, despite the fact that they were so different from what he had previously known. He had opened himself up and learned from the masters of the scientific disciplines. So many people professed to love others and yet destroyed those very words with their actions. Booth's love for all things was apparent in every action, even the ones she didn't agree with or the ones she argued against.

It was only logical that if Brennan were to learn how to love again, she would learn from the only master of the discipline that she knew. Booth.

The plane taxied to the terminal in Philadelphia and she forced herself not to sprint out the door and into the waiting area where a young man with a sign with her name waited, his suit disheveled and his face fatigued. She tried not to be disappointed that Booth was not there to meet her but wondered if it showed on her face anyway.

"I'm Dr. Brennan." She presented herself to the man and handed him one of her cases.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. My name is Special Agent Samuel Aarons. Agent Booth sends his apologies for not being able to meet you in person but unfortunately, two more bodies have been discovered and he was called away to the scene." He was already grabbing her other bag and striding quickly toward the exit to the airport.

"Does it appear to be connected to the previous bodies?" She slid into the car he had waiting at the curb and they sped away. Her heart beat faster at the thought that where this journey ended, Booth was waiting. She spoke of the case but her head was focused on two separate topics.

"This body was found only 100 feet from the previous bodies, positioned in the same manner. These bodies are just as decomposed as the previous."

"Was there any flesh left on any of the bodies at all?"

"No, ma'am. Agent Booth had the CSU lab techs take a full array of samples at the first scene and I am sure that he is doing the same at this scene. He warned us you wouldn't be happy if the crime scenes were compromised in any way." Aarons smiled at her then. "He's holding the scene for you right now."

"That's…good to hear." Her voice stuttered slightly and she hoped he could not hear it, as the car slid into the parking space in Fairmount Park and shut off. Crime scene tape was blocking off a large swath of wooded area and cop cars filled the parking lot. She collected her lab bag and followed Aarons through the mud.

Voices were shouting as a tent was being erected to protect against further rain, which drizzled even now on her head, causing her to shiver. Bodies shifted this way and that as she trudged forward, pushing through the muck and absently wishing she had her galoshes with her. Her eyes searched, straining, to see his familiar shape, the familiar build she knew so well. Suddenly, the crowd parted and he was there. Her breath caught in her throat, in her lungs, in her stomach and she stared.

He looked tired, as if he had not slept in days, but his eyes lifted from the conversation he was having with a female CSU officer and met hers. Eyes that looked sad and fatigued, but that lit up momentarily at seeing her. His lips lifted slowly into a smile that made her stomach warm and she felt her mouth involuntarily return it.


	5. Beginnings

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

**Author's Note:** Wow. Just wow. Your responses are amazing. I only hope that each new chapter of this story lives up to what you are hoping for. I'd also like to give a special shout-out to each reviewer who does not have a reply URL. Those of you who do, I am slowly working through responding. An extra special shout-out to those of you who have reviewed each chapter. I'm thinking of you when I write, planning each word and hoping it's as good as you are hoping for. :-)

**Author's Playlist: **I had quite a bit of inspiration in this chapter. I started out with Bon Iver's _Creature Fear_. Any of you _Chuck_ fans out there will recognize this amazing piece. However, as our favorite characters finally started to talk, I transitioned to Chris Stills' _When The Pain Dies Down._

CHAPTER FIVE: Beginnings

_There is nothing like a dream to create the future._ – Victor Hugo

"Dr. Brennan, it's a real pleasure to meet you. We've all heard great things about your abilities from Agent Booth." A smiling face was suddenly thrust between her face and her view of Booth, and she frowned slightly at the interruption. A hand was extended for her to shake and she took it firmly. "I'm Agent Jimmy Burns. We're very happy to have you here."

"I'm happy to be here." She said it loudly and firmly, looking over his shoulder at Booth's face, seeing his smile widen marginally as he registered her words before he turned to finish his conversation with the petite, dark-haired women standing in front of him, who looked irritated at his lack of concentration on her words. A tiny frisson of delight skittered through her at the idea that he had been distracted from his job by the very sight of her. The urge to walk up to him was overwhelming, but Agent Burns was already talking about the case and two skeletons lay in the ground before her, which she had to admit took slight precedence for the moment over her immediate need to speak to the man she had flown here to see. These murdered individuals did not care that she had not laid eyes on him in 75 days.

She crouched down next to the hole in the ground, latex gloves snapping on and her favorite boots sinking unfortunately into the mud. The familiar role of scientist took over, a soothing distraction from the emotional rollercoaster she had been on lately, and her mind automatically began to categorize and evaluate what her eyes observed. "One female and one male victim."

"That's similar to the first two bodies we found. They were also lying in a similar shallow grave, arms and legs entwined." Burns crouched down on the opposite side of the makeshift grave, across from her. She briefly touched the skull, the spinal column, and the pelvis of the skeleton closest to her, cataloguing the regular bone markers that were second nature to her now. Every skeleton had a story to tell her, and this one was no different.

"The male is on the left, approximately mid-30s. The female appears to be the same age and based on the shape of her pelvis, she's given birth at some point. I'll need to get them to a laboratory before I can give you anything more accurate than that on identity. I'm surprised at the complete deterioration of organic tissue – that would suggest they have been out here at least 4-5 years." She looked into the shallow hole. "How deep would you say they were buried? I'm surprised that wild animals didn't get to them immediately following their burial."

"The hole is only about three feet deep, definitely not deep enough to keep out any real predators that smelled fresh meat, even carrion."

"We think wild animals may have gotten to the bodies that we found yesterday because there were several bones missing, but I'm not convinced, since the skeleton is too intact to suggest they made any real headway at digging into them." His voice behind her was velvet and her spine stiffened automatically, a slight pink flush rushing to her cheeks involuntarily. Blue eyes shifted up to meet brown and the same small, secret smile played at both of their mouths.

"Where have the first two skeletons been moved to?" She stood up, snapping the latex off inside out and dropping it into the pocket of her blue suede blazer. Six months ago he told her that the blue suede was one of his favorite pieces of her clothing, so she had worn it again, this time with purpose.

"Nora Pembry, CSU." The dark-haired woman Booth had been speaking to earlier stepped forward with her hand extended. "It's a pleasure to meet you. The bodies have been moved to the lab we maintain at the building. We have a medical examiner on call at all times and he and I have been collaborating on attempting to identify the bodies. Neither he nor I have extensive experience with bodies completely devoid of flesh, and we appreciate you coming up to assist."

"I'm impressed with your ability to recognize your own limitations. In my experience, many people are unwilling to ask for help when it's needed." Pembry's mouth quirked into an odd smirk at her, and Brennan wondered if the compliment she had intended to just pass did not come across quite as planned. Normally Booth would step in if that was the case, but he didn't speak so she was fairly certain she had not said anything too rude.

"I will need extensive samples of the area around the bodies, both the first set discovered and this set to send back to the Jeffersonian for testing." She made eye contact with Booth again. "Agent Aarons told me that you already collected samples for the first set of bodies and took them to the lab."

"We did. They are already packaged and ready to be shipped immediately. I have an agent on standby to carry them all to DC on the evening flight." He pointed to the left and her head turned, eyes following where his fingers led. "The first two bodies were found over here. Agent Burns' and his crew were walking the grid around the site when someone stumbled over what appeared to be a stick poking out of the ground. Turned out to be a rib. Follow me."

He was walking with authority, coat flapping out behind him, as Pembry and Brennan followed quickly, Burns bringing up the rear. The first hole was similar to the one she had just looked at, approximately three feet deep, but now devoid of the bodies that were originally discovered in it. Too much time had passed for the local vegetation or the makeshift grave itself to tell them anything, and she hoped that the information from the samples and the bones themselves would tell the story.

Booth's cell phone suddenly rang and he excused himself to take the call. Brennan realized as she watched him that Booth had changed since his move to Philadelphia. He had always moved with confidence and charisma, but now his natural leadership abilities were shining through. FBI agents and local police officers around him looked for guidance that he effortlessly provided – thoughts and words moving quickly and efficiently.

"Unfortunately, we didn't get much from the graves themselves. We're hoping the bodies are a bit more talkative." Pembry and Burns let out simultaneous sighs and then looked at each other in an odd moment of shared professional humor.

Booth returned, sliding his phone into his jacket pocket. "I'm sorry, but I've got a meeting with the Secret Service in 30 minutes that I can't miss." He gestured to Burns. "Agent Burns here will get you whatever you need and I'll see you back at the office."

He was already turning to go, but she followed him for a few moments and the gentle touch of her fingertips on his back stopped him. She had begun to believe that Angela was right, that he was so attuned to her he knew when she was around even when she didn't speak. He did not appear surprised when he turned to face her.

"Booth, I—" Her voice stuck in her throat momentarily and she tried frantically to clear it.

"I know." His lips quirked into a half-smile and he glanced uncomfortably at the agents watching them from only a few feet away with what she was sure was intense interest. She realized that this was not the time or location to confront him about his departure or her feelings. He did look her in the eyes, though, and while his expression was guarded, his happiness at her presence seemed genuine. "It's good to see you."

He turned and departed the scene with no additional pomp and circumstance and she reminded herself that it would take time for the two of them to work out where they stood with each other after so much time apart. She remembered Angela's last words of wisdom before she had departed the lab only a few hours before. _He's going to be trying to protect himself by acting as if everything is just fine. He's not going to be expecting you to be the one to confront the emotional issues, so don't be surprised if he doesn't know how to react at first. Don't give up!_

She looked back at Pembry and Burns, who were diligently attempting to avoid eye contact and to look at everything but her, and sighed. She headed back toward the makeshift grave and mentally reorganized what she wanted to say to Booth.

* * *

"Peri-mortem fractures and minute lacerations on the phalanges and metacarpals indicate the second female victim was possibly tortured or fought with an attacker, resulting in serious defensive wounds."

"Interesting." Cam's face was thoughtful in the computer screen to Brennan's left. "Do those same wounds manifest on all four bodies?"

"No, only the second woman. Based on age markers in the bones and the level of degradation, I assess she was buried for approximately a year longer than the woman who was discovered first."

Cam's lips pursed in thought. "Maybe she was the first victim and the killer didn't realize she would fight so much. He may have sedated the next victims to make it easier."

"Unless Hodgins is able to identify any possible sedatives in the samples I sent, that's only speculation." Brennan set down the small bone she was holding, carefully sliding it into place on the table, completing the skeleton. "Have you received the samples yet?"

"Agent Hamilton delivered them about 30 minutes ago. Hodgins was practically giddy, but Angela forced him to leave for the night since it was 9 PM." Cam's smile was wry, but her own eyes were fatigued at the late hour. "We'll dive right in early tomorrow morning. You've also had a long day and should get some rest."

Brennan's shoulders tensed slightly at the realization that it was now 9:30 PM and she had yet to have the opportunity to speak with Booth in private, the real and true reason she had come here. "I'll do that. Have a good night."

"Good night." Cam's face disappeared and the laptop desktop shone blue before Brennan carefully shut the lid.

The door to the laboratory swung open quietly behind her and she wondered who was still in the building at almost 10 PM before the tingle on the back of her neck returned. Suddenly, all of the determination and conviction that had gotten her through the last 14 hours threatened to leave her and flee out of the room along with her courage and possibly the contents of her immediately queasy stomach. She took a deep breath and felt tangible pleasure, inhaling the familiar scent of his spicy cologne and that unique scent that was all him, and turned around to see him leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest.

"Hello." Her voice was a shy whisper he was unaccustomed to hearing from her.

"Hello." Everything about him screamed out exhaustion, and she was again reminded that Booth was no longer just dealing with what could be a serial murderer. He was also leading dozens of other younger agents, and probably monitoring multiple ongoing cases at the same time. The responsibility for all of those people and cases rested on his shoulders, something she knew he would feel keenly and take seriously. She felt a swell of pride for him rush through her.

"You look tired." She searched for a nicer way to say that and settled for the truth. He had told her that he liked that about her, and he looked even worse than he had hours ago at the crime scene. She wondered momentarily if better sleeping habits would be a positive addition to her outline for reasons why he should return to Washington.

"I _am_ tired." He smiled wearily at her, but his arms remained folded in a defensive move, his posture stiff even as he tried to look nonchalant leaning against the cold tile wall. His eyes dipped to the floor. "It's good to see you."

"You said that already." She stepped forward minutely as he smiled minutely at her comment. "It's good to see you too, Booth."

Impulsively, she stepped toward him completely, surprised and momentarily saddened when he seemed to lean slightly away from her before moving into his previous position. Her hand tentatively reached up to rest on his forearm, her fingers remembering the feel of him instantly, slightly tensing to feel the corded muscle under his suit jacket and shirt. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too." His lips pursed and his brow furrowed and she wondered why he was getting that familiar frustrated and confused look he had worn so many times in the last few months prior to his departure. "Why didn't you answer the e-mails I sent you when I first arrived?"

She had anticipated this question in the last few weeks, and even in the months previous as she went back and forth trying to decide what to do with the words that he sent her. She struggled to explain everything she had been thinking and her confusion over her own emotions – that undeniable rage she had fought back and tamped down time and time again.

"I didn't know what to say to you, because I couldn't understand what I was feeling. You told me," she paused as he subconsciously cringed away from the reminder of his confession to her that cold night, "you told me what you….told me….and then you left. You said we could be friends and then I find out I am the last person you tell you are leaving, barely two weeks before you go."

She pursed her lips tightly at the remembered pain at the thought that he had put it off for so long. "I was hurt and angry and......confused. How could you tell me that and then brush me off like someone you barely knew? Especially after……after what you said."

His eyes were genuinely surprised and widened at her. "I never wanted to brush you off. I just didn't know how to talk to you anymore. I thought everything I said to you was a reminder of that night like it was to me, and I…..I thought I was doing the right thing, letting us both move on. I thought I was doing what _you_ wanted."

"You leaving was _never_ what I wanted!" Her voice raised and echoed through the tiled room before she remembered that she was supposed to be having a constructive conversation and not yelling at him. "What I wanted was for everything to go back to the way it was before that night. I wanted our friendship to be the same and for you to not look so sad. Instead…..Instead, you left me and you asked me to be happy about it."

"I know." He sighed deeply and unwound one hand from his arms to rest upon hers, his large warm fingers radiating an electric spark into her skin and she reveled in it. "The real reason I waited so long to tell you was because I knew that's what it would seem like. I kept praying the right words would come to me to tell you, but they never came. And suddenly, I was out of time and I still didn't know what to say."

"You hurt me." She had to tell him that, had to clear the air.

"You hurt me." He smiled sadly at her. "I was hurting pretty bad and that was the reason for a lot of my behavior then. But, that's no justification for me hurting you back. I _am_ sorry for that – I hope you know that."

"I do know." She clenched her eyes tightly, gathering up all the courage within her and pressed forward.

She wanted to convey everything she was feeling, but all the words she had prepared on the plane stuck in her throat were unable to exit verbally. Her left hand reached up to softly cup his cheek lightly, her fingertips sliding across his cheekbone, the stubble rough against her palm. His eyes lifted, astonished, to look at her, the exhausted brown lightening a fraction. His deep breath shuddered in and expelled violently as his arms unfolded and then surged around her, his hands digging into her flesh as he held her so tightly against him, no light or air could peek between. She gripped him as tightly, willing him to understand what she was thinking, what she was feeling, how she missed him.

His lips breathed against her ear, the word she had been so desperate to hear for months and which he had been deliberately avoiding using since her arrival earlier today.

"Bones." His breath was hot against her skin, the emotion in his voice tangible even to her.

She shuddered as the memories of 75 days swept through her, all of the pain and agony and heartache and confusion and then the final realization of why she felt those emotions. With that word, in his voice, against her ear, she felt reborn and renewed, as if the terrible three months before were slowly chipping away, falling to the ground in a pile around their bodies twisted together. She had missed his hugs. Her body collapsed fully against his, allowing him to hold her up with the strength that she had come to rely on for so long and had missed so greatly when he was gone.

"Booth." Her voice was wet with unshed tears and his arms tightened a fraction more, almost to the point of pain. She welcomed it and gripped him tighter in response. Every labored breath in his tight arms was a reminder that he was back in her life. His breath was warm against her neck and in her hair and she reveled in the feel of his torso against hers, his legs mingling with hers as they tried to merge into one person. When he finally began to lean back away from her, arms loosening, she felt a pang of regret run through her momentarily at the loss of his touch and suddenly found the courage to speak. "Booth, I have to tell you—"

"It's late, Bones, and we're surrounded by dead bodies." His smile this time was a little less sad and a little more genuinely happy. "I do want to hear everything you want to tell me, but not here."

"They won't mind if we talk." She was gratified at his smile and chuckle at her attempt to be funny.

"But I will. And right now I don't think I would be much of a conversationalist. I'm running on barely three hours sleep in the last 48 hours." He sighed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands before revealing eyes that were more bloodshot than was healthy. "Let's get you to your hotel and me to my apartment and we'll find some time to talk tomorrow. You about ready to go?"

She hesitated before realizing that she would prefer to speak with him when he didn't look as if he were about to pass out from exhaustion. This was a good first step. Already, that smile he had given her had changed from the sad, small shadow of his former smile and was a little more reminiscent of old Booth.

"Yes." She tucked the voice recorder into the top drawer of the desk by the door and picked up her lab case, sealing it shut. Her lab coat was on the wall hook and her purse on her shoulder in moments. She trusted that when he said they would talk tomorrow, they would. "I'm ready."

"Great, let's get some sleep." He held the swinging door open for her, and she stepped underneath his arm, pausing for a millisecond in her movement out the door to once more inhale the warm, earthy smell of Booth before moving forward. She was not sure, but she hoped it had been minute enough of a moment that he had not noticed. He led her to the curb by the building and hailed a cab.

Suddenly second-guessing herself she turned to face him again, her eyes frantic and her hand latched onto his bicep again. "Tomorrow, you promise, we'll talk?"

"Absolutely." He smiled a real, broad smile for the first time since she had arrived. "If you're up for it, I'll grab breakfast and swing by your room at about 7:30? Do you still like those bagels with everything on them?"

"Even the tofu sprinkles." It was on old joke. Not a very good one, but it reminded her of the Sunday morning they spent several years before at a café eating bagels – his plain with lox and cream cheese, and her everything bagel with sundried tomato cream cheese. He had teased her and asked why other ridiculous items weren't on the bagel if it was labeled "everything." He laughed slightly at her remembrance of that time and their mutual joke. The cab slid to the curb and Booth was already opening the door. "Goodnight, Booth."

She was half-way into the cab when his hand reached out suddenly and latched around her upper arm, holding her outside of the cab. Her head turned toward his in surprise, only to freeze and her eyes to close as his head leaned forward and soft, warm lips settled on the left corner of her mouth, barely touching the corner of her own lips that were parted in surprise and anticipation. Her stomach clenched in shock and swirled in aroused anticipation at the thought of him doing that again.

He pulled back to search her eyes, and she wondered if she looked as rattled as she felt.

"You will always be special to me, Bones. You always have been and you always will be. I will never, ever brush you off again." He was looking at her intently and she heard her breath catch in her throat. "Sleep well and I'll see you in the morning."

When he shut the door and the cab departed, she turned in her seat to watch him stand at the curb. He raised his hand for moment and smiled – a smile she had not seen on his face since before that terrible night when she had hidden behind her own fears. She felt good, as if this was a positive first step and tomorrow would be the next step. She watched him until the cab turned the corner and that smile was no longer visible.


End file.
